A string of violent incidents in Mexico City has left residents looking for answers. In February, a gunman riding a motorcycle killed a nightclub owner in La Zona Rosa, a central district not far from the U.S and British embassies and the headquarters of many foreign multinational companies. On May 9, Malcolm X’s grandson was beaten to death in a bar near the city’s famous Plaza Garibaldi. On May 26, in the same neighborhomod as the nightclub owner shooting, armed assailants kidnapped a dozen teenagers from Tepito, one of the city’s rougher outer neighborhoods. On June 6, two gunmen entered a gym in Tepito and killed four people. Josefina Ramirez, the aunt of one of the victims, explained, "two masked men came and just started shooting.”

Although some residents worry that the recent increase of violent incidents that appear to be connected to organized crime could undermine Mexico’s City’s success story, many analysts continue to view Mexico City’s community-focused police program as an adequate buffer from a regression to the sort of crime wave they city went through in the 1990s.

According to the recently published Mexico City Criminal Index Report, from the city’s Citizen Council, most types of crime are falling in Mexico City. Between January and May of 2013, Mexico City reported 336 murders, up from 316 during the same period in 2012. Likewise, injuries caused by firearms increased 11.5 percent during the first five months of 2013. The city also logged nearly seven thousand car break-ins during the first five months of the year. Overall, however, even during the eventful first few months of 2013, high impact crimes fell by 18.1 percent. The number of people robbed while riding the subway, for instance, fell by 14.4 percent. Overall, Mexico City reported 464 murders in 2012, about the same as New York City. Chicago on the other hand reported 532. Caracas, Venezuela a city with a population about a third as big as Mexico City's reported more than 5,600 murders in 2012.

Over the course of 2013, Mexico City’s police have continued to operate patrols and monitor public security cameras.

Despite the uptick in violent incidents over the last few months, Mexico City is much safer than it was a decade ago and continues to enjoy a much more favorable outlook than cities in other parts of the country and region. As this graphic shows, Mexico City is still one of the safest parts of the country. Although there have been some reports that organized crime groups might be trying to muscle their way into the retail drug market, Mexico City simply does not experience the same level of cartel violence seen in other parts of the country.

Mexico City’s mayor Miguel Angel Mancera recently said, “the situation in Mexico [City] is not … like in other parts of the country… the presence of the all the video surveillance systems, the federal police, the army...it would be very difficult for [organized crime groups] to operate in this territory.”

Alejandro Hope, an economist and security analyst at the Mexican Institute of Competitiveness, a think tank, recently told me, that in Mexico City “recent killings are mostly about control of the retail drug market. It may have been a flare-up between rival gangs — rather serious, but nothing that alters the main insight that Mexico City tends to be safer than, say, Monterrey, just because it has far many more cops.”

Still, despite the improvement in security in Mexico City in recent years, there is still work to be done. In spite of the macro trend of crime reduction in Mexico’s capital city the victims of crimes are still looking for answers.

Josephina Garcia Rodriguez, the mother of one of the teenagers kidnapped in La Zona Rosa explained, "It's been difficult…really hard for us mothers. We just want our sons back home with us."